Ireland | Raging Biblio-holism

High Dive

February 15, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: It’s 1984 and Maggie Thatcher is prime minister, Ireland is tearing itself apart, and life is otherwise moving steadily forward. But when Thatcher’s entire leadership team plans to stay in Brighton for a conference, three lives – a hotel manager, his daughter, and an IRA operative – collide with the bombing of the Grand Hotel as their backdrop. The Review: This has been a year for slow burners in the ToB – books that take their time, develop […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, England, Fiction, High Dive, Historical Fiction, History, Ireland, Jonathan Lee, Literature, Margaret Thatcher, review, Reviews, The Tournament of Books 2017, The Troubles

The Mark and the Void

December 7, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Claude is an analyst at an Irish bank just after the financial crash when he meets an author, Paul Murray. Paul maybe wants to write a book about Claude – but he’s got a strange way of doing it, and slowly these two men are pulled into a narrative that is, perhaps, being created as we read it… The Review: It’s hard to make financial writing flashy or sexy. There are your pop-science type books, like The Big […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Banking, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Humor, Ireland, Literature, Metafiction, Paul Murray, review, Reviews, Satire, The Mark and the Void

Beatlebone

November 4, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: It’s 1978 and John Lennon has fled the peaceful torpor of his New York life to find the island he bought years earlier, off the western coast of Ireland. But getting to the island is a little more difficult than he planned and so, accompanied by a deeply Irish driver, he finds himself on a dark, comic, existential wander through space, time, and Clew Bay. The Review: There is no one else quite like Kevin Barry in […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Advance Review, Beatlebone, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Ireland, John Lennon, Kevin Barry, Literature, Magic, Magical Realism, Reviews

City of Bohane

September 10, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: Logan Hartnett, leader of the Hartnett Fancy, is struggling a bit. The Norries are getting rowdy and spoiling for a fight, his lieutenants are starting to cast eyes towards ascension, his missus wants him out of the game, and his ma’ can’t be trusted. When rumor hits him that the man he once deposed is back in town, it sets off an interesting year in the city of Bohane – yes it does. The Review: What an exceptional […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 6, BEA13, City of Bohane, Fiction, Graywolf Press, Ireland, Kevin Barry, Literature

Dark Lies the Island

April 5, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: A collection of cloudy, slightly dark Irish tales – stories of drinkers, lovers, losers, and a few who might be something else entirely… The Review: Kevin Barry’s first novel, City of Bohane, has been on my radar for a little while, although I’ve consciously passed it over a few times. But I was lucky enough to (long after the time had passed) come upon a copy of Powell’s Indiespensable #37 (a novel called Familiar) – which included a well-in-advance-of-pub-date copy […]

Categories: Fiction, Short Stories • Tags: Advance Review, Dark Lies the Island, Fiction, Graywolf Press, Ireland, Kevin Barry, Powell's, Short Stories

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: Ireland

High Dive

The Mark and the Void

Beatlebone

City of Bohane

Dark Lies the Island